Surprise, Surprise!
Now Playing: Sibelius' Finladia - what else?
Topic: Politics, as usual..

There's a relatively small country in the north of Europe that most Americans would be hard pressed to locate on the map. Even though quite a few folks in the US are using its perhaps best-known export everyday. It 's where Nokia phones come from (and Linux, for the more geeky among us): Finland. And if you were to measure its urban areas only it becomes even smaller: most of its land mass is covered either with dense forests or multitudes of lakes. With only 5.3 million inhabitants its population density is less than even Nevada or Arizona. Yet for four years running the annual Economic World Conference, held in Davos, Switzerland, has ranked it as not only the most competitive country in the world, but as one whose citizens are the best looked after in the industrialized world. More astounding is the fact that it achieved all that in less than fifty years - going from Europe's least livable country to the very top of the world.

According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, however, "Finland is an exceptional case Europe". At least so cautions Riisto Erasaari, a professor of social policy at Helsinki University. "We are a small homogenous country," he continues, "heavily state-based, and our social model as a whole is so typically Finnish that it won't travel. But parts of it," - such as the government-funded focus on innovation and education, "are exportable." Actually, there the good professor errs on the side of Finnish modesty. A small figure quoted later in the same article gives us a clue: someone in his exalt position would be subject to a seemingly hefty 45% in taxation. Sounds a like lot, doesn't it? What about if he where to work, say at Stamford University? He would still pay an unsociable 30-35% to the IRS, but the ten to fifteen percent difference would mean he would lose the kingdom!

His family (or he himself) would have to pay for his seven years of study; the US government - locally and federally - would laugh him out of the room were he to ask that his life's partner (mind you: not wife!) should receive sixty percent of her last salary - from said government - during here eighteen months of maternity leave. Find a local, quarto-lingual daycare center for his child - and only pay for one-fifth of the placement cost at such a miraculous Kindergarden? Local authorities would probably classify him as a communist just for asking and try to resurrect Mr. McCarthy to haunt him.

Imagine for a moment: you'd be paying 10% (seriously: ten percent!) more in income tax in order not to have to worry about medical bills, because there won't be any short of vanity surgery. Nor would you have to start scrounging the day your kid is born because you dream of getting him or her through college - you've already paid for that. Moreover, if you were Finnish, you could also rest assured that at least 3.5% of the government's income goes into research and development. That's right: R&D - and we are not talking about dumb smart bombs either.

There is, of course, a downside to all this: speeding tickets are apparently priced according to your personal wealth: a heir to a sausage empire (think of Johnny Dean) was once fined $ 217.000 for going twice the local speed limit in a residential zone. Can you image the money the LAPD could collect in Beverly Hills alone? You could finance a decent size police force with those fines.

Sounds like a paradise, if you ask me. No wonder Santa Claus has his residence there (true enough: its up on the arctic circle in a town with an unpronounceable name)!

A New Knight Errant..
Now Playing: Marche Funebre
Topic: Politics, as usual..

January is of late, at least for me, not necessarily a welcome month. For the very vain reason of my birthday falling right into the first week. Recently though I thought I had reason to rejoice and look forward to the bristling first month of 2006: Alan Greenspan is going to retire! Until I remembered that the task of appointing his successor falls to the sitting president, i.e., George Bush. The tall Texan with an unappetizing streak of selecting unqualified members of his inner cadre to such jobs.

True to form, the little man selected Ben Shalom Bernanke for the job. A former professor for economics (and I know all about these, having been one), chairman of the White House economic advisors, and - as the future finance king of the world - a man who solidly lives in the past. We are talking Glasnost past here, when inflation was the all-consuming concern of monetary policy world-wide. Unfortunately for the markets, such a return to the good old bad old days spells even further curbs on what these past three years have been trends so flat they might be called Dutch. Under Greenspan's murderous reign the three major American stock-markets fluctuated about as much as Stanley Kubrik's 2001 monolith. Meanwhile a growing number of home owners and first time buyers find themselves saddled with mortgages inflated for no other reason than Master Alan's senile zeal to fight a dragon that long ago ceased to attack the castle.

The freshly crowned prince art the Fed looks set to charge the same gate, succinctly ignoring the real threat at the back door, where the crude oil comes in. Of course, you cannot quite blame the man for not looking over his shoulder; after all, that would be cutting into the boss' cadre's profits. So what if the combination of fake job statistics and crude oil prices are more dangerous to the world's stock markets than inflation ever was? Ours is a robust, two tier economy where those in the know (and on the right side of the gated community fence) do indeed know how to profit from the concerted action once known as NYSE and/or NASDAQ. And the rest of the world can go to hell, we'll soon see to that.

Thought I'd never say that..
Now Playing: Theme Music from Le Grand Bleu..
Topic: Rambling Rumminations
..but thank the (cinematographic) gods that the summer is over! While I dread the idea of waking up to the misery that is called winter in along the north-eastern shore of the US of A, in terms of movie going the end of the summer is a blessing.

Maybe we can attribute the dearth of decent home-grown films to a general overheating of Hollywood brains (or is that an oximoron?). At any rate we suddenly find an albeit small barrage of good movies hitting the screens: Capote, with a spectacular performance by Philip Seymor Hoffman; Good Night, And Good Luck, finally making an actor out of George Clooney; Broken Flowers, with minimalist Bill Murray at is most minimalisitc; and yes, even the timely return of Wallace and Gromit in the The Return of the Wererabbit. Then there was the ever cantankerous Shirley McClaine in In Her Shoes (which unfortunately has us endure tha dittzy Diaz thingy). Even Tim Burton's two recent outpourings (The Corpse Bride, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory) were timely distractions from the morass the other media tend to serve us.

Is there thus hope for Hollywood? I doubt it. Except for the claymation heroes (and they are British), only Tim Burton could claim box office success. Even the usually successful animation genre begins to pale - or why else would someone try to make a good daily comic - Over The Edge - into what promises to be a second-rate feature film?

While the Indies are still far from main street, Hollywood needs to rethink its strident opposition to good movie making, as practiced in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Otherwise the box office receipts could twindle into the red in a matter of a few bad years such as 2005 has been.

Joie de vivre..?
Now Playing: Moustaki - La Meteque
Topic: Rambling Rumminations

The difference between an American romantic comedy and a French film of the same genre is twofold: the US version will nearly always have the same plot centered on two protagonists overcoming obstacles largely of their own making. More importantly, the movie will be filled with people trying their best to act.

A French comedy rarely focuses on just two people; there will be the not so innocent bystanders, at times in form of relatives and/or friends. There will be total strangers whose accidental appearance might change the course of the plot; the course of history. The biggest difference, however, will always be the cast of participants who appear to live the script rather than stoop down to mere acting. Even in eventually silly farces such as "Cote d'Azur" which appeared this weekend in select "art-house" cinemas.

The story of a Parisian family on summer vacation at the famed beaches of the title, it is for the most part a modernized comedy of errors such as Moli?re might have written. I say for the most part because the director chose to invalidate his original concept by a downright stupid song-and-dance number performed by all the actors at during the final scene - just in case the audience did not get the repeated hints at the old wives' tale that seafood, in particular crustaceans, are in fact powerful aphrodisiacs.

The story is simple enough: a middle-aged couple with a teenage daughter and a preteen son are coming to terms with what they perceive to be their kids awakening sexuality. The appearance of the son's best friend convinces them that junior is gay. Meanwhile mom's city lover follows her to the country, intent to force a decision in his favor, one she hates to make because it would take away the element of clandestine she really loves. To make matters a bit more interesting, dad's former love of his life turns up as well, and it is the local plumber, equally out force the issue. Turns out that dad, initially guilty of homophobia, at least where his son is concerned, is actually the gayest fiddle in town. While junior is not, not even a bit. And the best part (of the movie, at least) is that it all sorts itself out, without director resorting to improbable artifice or stupid stereotypes. In the end everyone gets not only what they deserve but also what they truly wanted in the first place. Except for the audience which, alas, gets stunned by the truly abhorrent singing and dancing.

Just another update..
Now Playing: Missa Solemnis in C minor

Some might call it an infantile dream, one I should long be too old for. No doubt, all manners of folly have gone into it over the decades. Resulting only in less than middling success. I am, of course, talking about my efforts as a writer of fiction. Lately the pen, for want of a better word, has been dormant. A few feeble attempts, but mostly rehashes of past exercises. In lieu of new writings I did the next best thing: I updated the related websites. Thus, HandsOn Productions, the gateway to five of my sites, has been simplified with a single Flash page. Similarly, The Storyteller's Logbook, where most of the short story fiction is available, has had a complete makeover. Again: need for simplicity served as the primary motif. Next in line are streetwalker, the poetry site, and ny-ny gallery, which really does need a more relevant exhibit.

As always, my life right now is in a flux; I am in the middle of a semi-serious countdown towards a departure from New York - but I have been doing that since the day I arrived. The question: Where am I going with this?, has yet to be solved. Any ideas? Anyone?

A moment deluxe..
Now Playing: Prokoviev: Pierre et le Loupe
Topic: Rambling Rumminations

You might be forgiven if you were to think that lately all I ever write about is movies. Of course, that is utter rubbish. Films are just a means to an end. At times they fill gaps, when I cannot think what else to write, when write I must. Other times they fill another gapping hole: that of time, a tradition a century old and honored by many.

Now and then, however, they are a momentary inspiration. When they instill, for whatever minute a moment, that we could actually be better then we are, if only we had a half-decent director and maybe a not too morose screenplay writer. Such cinematographic efforts do not need to themselves uplifting in spirit; in fact they could be about something quite brutal, or totally silly and foppish. Some emblematic fantasy about worlds that do not exist, or futures that we can never meet; some distinctive tale about a man going to see another man about a horse might do it as well.

In the end is but us, and how we see the efforts by those untold hordes necessary to create even the most simplistic of celluloid efforts. And they all seem to have in common the very basic ability to tell a story well; in that such greats are quite bookish. It is one such tale that brought about this entry in the diary: Finding Neverland, the story about the writer who manage to tame Peter Pan into the covers of a good book. It is not that it is inspirational in the usual sense of the world, nor that every actor and actress seem to have slipped into their characters so effortlessly. Rather it seems to me the synergy of the story itself, the people in it - both real and imagined, and of us the, the viewers, that allows this tale to tug at strings we usually hide so well.

Or may it is just me; after all, my name is Peter, and as many will attest quite readily, I've always had difficulty growing up. Even now. As you will see if you just read these words again..

As the summer packs up..
Topic: Grunts, rants, and others

Granted, I will watch almost anything the movie moguls care to serve up. If not in the theaters then on the small screen or the idiot tube. It has been a minor obsession since I first could reach the on switch on our first TV, way back when. But - I said almost!

This year's helpings have been especially poor and - if on will place faith in the official statistics - the rest of the movie-going public agrees with my assessment. The paying numbers have declined seriously; the rise of DVD, both pirated and legit, plus in particular Hollywood's continued inability to gauge public tastes have served notice that change is not only necessary but inevitable.

Of course, the paymasters will not take notice until some major studio fails catastrophically. Even then it is doubtful that the managers and bean counters will be able to fathom the real reasons for their failures: Lincoln's Axiom. This states quite clearly that you cannot please all the people all the time. And still the studios try it by neutralizing every concept or sentiment, pandering only to the lowest possible denominator, thus trying to do just that. What will it take for them to realize that once you dumbed everything down to rock-bottom lower no longer exists?

The past few weekends have brought us The 40-Year Old Virgin (would you believe that there are some forty-one year old real virgins planning to sue the studio for defamation?). We have been offered the Great (melodramatic) Raid. Plus an American male prostitute's take on Amsterdam, and Two Imbeciles And A Wedding. Add to that the countless failed attempts on remakes, sequels, re-interpretations, and other plagiarism, and you have the Sum of the Summer of 2005, digitally re-mastered.

There were a few, very few exceptions; accidents of cooperations between directors and actors. Tim Burton's candied-up Johnny Depp showed us the bittersweet side of Roald Dahl; Jessica Lange managed to curb Kevin Costner's baseball tongue enough to permit Mike Binder to create one of the view real movies of the year. And even the abominable showman, Chris Rock, was coxed into producing a memorable line in the animated take on New Yorkers called Madagascar. Bill Murray made two memorable attempts to revive the dying audiences with The Life Aquatic and Broken Flowers. Unfortunately for him the Land of Super-sizing Everything failed to comprehend his minimalist messaging.

The outlook for the remaining year is bleak: Zorro is coming back for no reason at all; more ghosts and ghouls are heading for the silver screen; and we are heading head on into the schmaltz season - as already announced last February - with this years crop of Christmas movies. I do not know exactly what the ensuing skirmishes for the Oscars of 2006 will try to shove past our eyeballs, but I am sure it will be worse, a lot worse than what we have seen since last Labor Day. Makes me wish I could truly watch almost anything.

Unfortunately I cannot.

The Return of the Harry
Now Playing: Magical Mystery Tour..
Topic: Grunts, rants, and others

You could call me "a fan of the genre", I guess. And in part, to be sure, what attracted me was the hullabaloo that hit the literary world when J.R. Rowling was selected for a Man Booker Price - Britain's most prestigious book award. So I read the first one. And was quite keen on both the second and the third one. And yes, I did watch the movies; though, in my defense, I can say I did not exactly rush to either the book store or the movie theatre

What's more, the last film was intriguing, fascinating to watch, and did the book more than justice. Largely that credit has to go to its director, Alfonso Cuaron. But even he will struggle with the latest installment of the Harry Potter saga, despite his excellent credentials. One of the reason a screen version will be difficult is that this time around the book contains mainly fluff! Plus large gaps in logic, character formation and drama. Of the latter there is hardly any.

Ms. Rowling, whose ability to convey her characters as larger than life remains unchallenged, has unfortunately followed the erroneous assumption that her now teenage charges need to go through the same pubescent dilemmas as her growing readership among pre-teens. Unfortunately she has chosen to present us with a highly sanitized version of teenage Sturm & Drang. As a result there might be legions of very young readers frustrated by the evasiveness of their elders whenever they ask about "snogging" - a typically English euphemism for "making out". Even more unfortunately, this installment of young Harry contains pages upon pages reserved entirely to the where, the why, and the who is who of snogging, much to the detriment of the overall story. Moreover, her usually tense writing has been relaxed in view of the nearly guarantied sales. Neither Harry nor Ms. Rowling need to prove themselves anymore. Their adventures now take place on the marketing and hyping front, clearly following Master Lucas and his motley band of marketing misfits down the path to the dark side of exploitation.

At the end of the book I felt cheated. Clearly Harry has grown up and become another arrogant but boring almost-adult. He is about to drop out of school; and most likely he will muddle his way through the final seven-hundred or eight-hundred pages of the last installment, in a year or two. Will I read it? Certainly, just like with Star Wars, like with the Matrix Trilogy, I need closure. But as in both those cases I can wait until I can rent it or download it. Ms. Rowling's books are no longer worth the price - not even discounted.

Yet another movie..
Now Playing: New York's Anthem: A NYPD Siren..
Topic: Rambling Rumminations

By now I can hazard a guess that everyone (all five of you!) who regularly reads these pages knows that I have an ever so slight addiction to movies. In that sense I am probably an escape artist. I do watch the the good, the bad, and the tarnished - even if I do draw the line at the truly horrific.

A favorite category has always been what commonly labels itself as "romantic comedies". The true last frontier of Science Fiction. Lately I had been thinking that it has become a dying art, and that its throes began right after Harry rode from school with Sally. Imagine: someone has drawn up a "sequel" to The Graduate, with Shirley MacLain playing the now very aged Mrs. Robinson, and Kevin Costner weighing in as the erstwhile student Lothario about to deck the Granddaughter, too. Just how bad is it in Hollywood?

The reason for why this arises here is John Cusack's latest effort. As far as the genre is concerned his last real success was Gross Point Blank. With today's release of "Must Love Dogs" he seemed to try and recapture old vainglory. I cannot truly say he succeed, nor could I attest to his failure. While his costar, Ms. Diane Lane, was part of the reason for my confusion, the bulk of the blame must be laid at the script writer(s).

In this the movie represents a first for me: a script written so well it actually stank. No amount of acting skill or starry leverage could have rescued this one - its demands were simply inhuman. My suspicion is that the perpetrating literati were former political speechwriters or Washington (DC) hacks! No-one else would smother the protagonists with so many one-liners, aphorisms, steals of entire pages from Bartlett's, and - the piece de resistance - the Little Brown Penny from Yeats, delivered by ex-Horror star Christopher Plummer. I honestly do not know whether or not I like it or if I should thumb my nose at it. I guess that if you really have nothing else planned it is still better than pizza and a trip to Blockbuster. But beware, the script really is full of it.

Now Playing: Beck: Everybody's gotta learn sometime..
Topic: My mind's attic

Let's see: I do have a considerable amount of annoying habits and traits; a surplus, many would agree. Which, of course, float more readily to the surface now that I am getting older. I know, I know: my recent obsession with the age thing is just one of them. Still, consider the mental problematic of a man who has physically aged along with everyone else, acquaintances, strangers and friends. Yet mentally a retardation of time set in at an early age. It has always been a deficit of a few years, which has now grown into more than a decade and half.

Thus we will be talking or debating or arguing or joking: and in the middle of it all someone nearly always does a double-take. As if they saw me for the first time, without the rosy spectacles words and phrases can impose on listeners. Suddenly they count the lines and the weigh the gray fringes on the side. Aided perhaps by a reference to a different era they are confronted with the blunt truth. Few mustered the nerve, yet some have blurted it out, arresting the small talk around us.

That discrepancy also drives memories and their erasure. Some of it, naturally, is simple self-preservation. Our minds can hold on to only so much After which something has to give. I don't know if our capacity is really shrinking, or if it simply that preoccupations are rising as years go by. I just wish memory would talk to more detailed directions from us. So that I can forget not only the woman in the middle distance, with her butterfly glasses and those legs sticking out from under my sweater. And maybe remember someone else's name and face from way, way back when; maybe even instead of the lady silently mouthing the lyrics of a song that seemed to make her amazingly happy yesterday, on the subway. She has been stuck in a corner of my meandering mind like a commercial jingle.

What am I to do with her?